BD 435 
.W7 
Copy 1 







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Book 
Copyright N! 



COFtfRIGUT DEPOStT. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

Thoughts on the Evolution of Spirit-Life 
and Various Other Subjects. 



BY 
BENJAMIN F. WOODCOX 

Author of 

'Thoughts About Love, and Other Thoughts. 

"In Cupid's Chains, and Other Poems." 



WOODCOX & FANNER 

Publishers 

BATTLE CREEK, MICH. 



■*■ 



y)1 



Copyright, 1921, by 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN WOODCOX 



BLLI8 PUBLISHING COMPANY 

PRINTERS 

BATTLB CRKKK, MICH. 



MAR 14 1921 
©CLA611095 

wo J 



THE law of spiritual evolution seems to be 
the most important thing that this book 
suggests. But there are two other things 
of nearly equal importance with spiritual evolu- 
tion, to my way of thinking, suggested herein. 
The one is the discovery that all life is spirit; is 
spirit-life, and the other is the suggestion that 
nature is the only bible that has any vestige of 
authority in the universe, and the book to which 
we should go for religious guidance. 

C. H. F. 



/ am the Message that Nature brings 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 



1. All life is spirit; is spirit-life. And all spirit- 
life is in course of evolution through enumerable forms 
and changes and lives until it reaches and passes 
through the human form and continues its evolution 
without the aid of a material body. 

2. The evolution of spirit-life takes place under 
what is known as the law of Spiritual Evolution. And 
the law of Spiritual Evolution is a very simple law, 
and one that can be easily understood and explained. 

3. We can easily understand how the tiny spark 
of life, or spirit, implanted by the Creator in the most 
simple material form can grow, or evolve, and can be 
transplanted as it grows from one material body to 
another until it becomes the complex spirit of man, 
or rather the complex spirit that inhabits the material 
form or body that we call man. And we can further 
understand how this spirit that is in man may con- 
tinue to grow, or evolve until it has become sufficiently 
strong, or full of vitality or life to no longer need the 
protection of a material body, but can continue its 
evolution without this material hindrance. And it is 
still possible for us to further understand how this 
spirit that is now free from a material body, can con. 



6 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

tinue to evolve until it arrives in the presence of its 
God; until it becomes like unto the God who gave it 
birth and started it on its evolutionary journey. 

4. The law of Spiritual Evolution enlightens. It 
helps us to understand the Christian religion, and all 
other religions. 

5. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution it is easy 
to find an explanation for everything, even for things 
of the most trivial nature. 

6. The law of Spiritual Evolution agrees with all 
that science has discovered, or will discover. It is 
one of the universal laws like the law of Gravitation. 
That is, the law of Spiritual Evolution admits of no ex- 
ceptions. And no religion is, or can be true that is not 
in harmony with spiritual evolution. No religion can 
be true that is out of harmony with the law of spirit- 
ual growth or development. 

7. The law of Spiritual Evolution unites all re- 
ligions. Discloses the fact that all religions are but 
one religion that is differently interpreted and under- 
stood by different people and by different persons of 
the same belief who are differently enlightened or 
spiritually developed. 

8. As the spirit-life evolves, the law of Spiritual 
Evolution becomes more and more complex. First, 
there enters into Spiritual Evolution the law "Love." 
And this law at once becomes an essential to the 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 7 

further evolution of spirit-life. A little later the law 
"Faith" appears and begins to play its part in spirit- 
ual evolution. And long before the spirit-life has 
evolved sufficiently to appear in human form it has 
become a rather complex spark of life, and may be said 
to be religious. But not until this spark of life — this 
spirit — has entered human form, and has developed a 
rather high state of self-consciousness, does the law of 
Right and Wrong become an important factor in 
spiritual evolution. 

9. The minute that we become sufficiently self- 
conscious to come under the operation of the law of 
Right and Wrong, we begin the battle that is to de- 
cide our future evolution; we begin the battle that is 
to decide how slowly, or how rapidly we shall evolve 
toward the divine. 

10. Spiritual, — or self-consciousness begins back 
at the beginning of life and proceeds upward by a slow 
unfolding, an evolution. 

11. Spiritual, — or self-consciousness is attained 
with infinite slowness. Not until the spirit-life has 
been evolving for thousands of centuries does it attain 
sufficient self-consciousness to distinguish between the 
right and the wrong. Not until the spirit-life has been 
evolving for thousands of centuries is it sufficiently 
developed to work out its own destiny ; is it sufficiently 
developed to no longer need the hand that has guided 
it through all the early stages of its evolution. 



8 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

12. First the spirit-life becomes conscious of its 
environment, and as the spirit-life continues to evolve 
this consciousness increases until it includes a knowl- 
edge of everything human and divine. 

13. With increased consciousness comes enlight- 
enment, and knowledge, and understanding, and wis- 
dom; the ability to think, and to see, and know. 

14. That man whose consciousness is the most 
highly developed is the most close to the truth of 
things — is the most apt to be in the right. 

15. Most human spirits are just approaching the 
border of self-consciousness — are not yet conscious of 
one-thousandth part of their life, or of the lives of 
others, or of the beauty and the grandeur of life. 

16. Spiritual evolution is a slow unfolding attained 
through right living; through constantly holding the 
right attitude toward all life. 

17. Our spiritual development can be measured 
by the loftiness of our thought, and by the emotional 
depth of our feelings. 

18. That which does not help us in our spiritual 
evolution, does not help us. 

19. Our spiritual enlightenment and develop- 
ment, like our refinement and our culture, is per- 
fectly apparent to all who are in a position to observe 
it, or to understand it. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTIO 9 

20. The law of Spiritual Evolution leads us grad- 
ually to the truth through an enlightenment that is 
spiritual growth. 

21. Some human spirits have advanced sufficient- 
ly in their development to see into the heavens them- 
selves; have evolved sufficient spiritual vitality and 
perception to have a clear idea of what is in the be- 
yond. 

22. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution every 
virtue and every vice is accounted for, considered and 
weighed, and either helps us in our evolution or re- 
tards us in our spiritual growth. 

23. Most persons have not yet reached a stage in 
their spiritual evolution where freedom and leisure is 
of value to them — have not yet reached a stage in 
their development where they can use freedom and 
leisure to the best advantage. 

24. All things fade into each other, or are obtained 
through a gradual blending. 

25. Nothing in this world is finished. Everything 
is in course of being developed, or evolved, or per- 
fected. 

26. Evolution is the first aim of all life. Spiritual 
evolution first, and then mental and physical evolu- 
tion. 



10 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

27. We who are in human form have advanced far 
enough in our evolution to have attained self-con- 
sciousness. Have advanced far enough to be able to 
understand the difference between right and wrong, 
and to begin to see and to appreciate the beautiful and 
the good; but we have not yet advanced far enough 
for us to be completely, entirely wise, or just. 

28. As we mount higher and higher in the scale of 
spiritual evolution we become more and more in con- 
trol of our destiny. 

29. No religious theories, nor dogmas, nor creeds, 
are necessary to spiritual development. Just faith 
is all that is needed. Faith in some God that is more 
lofty and divine than we are. Just something to 
cause us to seek to become better than we are; to 
cause us to make an effort to evolve out of ourselves 
into something higher; something more like the faith 
that we hold. And if our faith is not lofty enough we 
need not fear for as we approach our faith, our faith 
will become more lofty, and will advance upward be- 
fore us, and lead us at last through spiritual evolution 
to the right God. 

Have faith in some God, and believe whatever you 
will, or can. All is well. Your faith will accomplish 
its purpose, and with that purpose accomplished, 
which is the evolution of your inner-life, will come a 
more enlightened faith, and a knowledge of the truth, 
which is also the good, and God. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 11 

30. Spirit-life makes use of material forms only 
until it has evolved, or generated sufficient strength 
and vitality and consciousness to no longer need the 
protection of a material body. 

31. Everything tends to prove that the inner, or 
spirit-life that is in man is still in its infancy though 
probably thousands of centuries old. 

32. Spirit-life is the electric spark which makes 
possible material or physical life. 

33. Without spirit-life there could be no material, 
or physical, or animal life. And this physical, or 
material, or animal life can not, in any case, survive 
the departure of the spirit-life within. 

34. Spirit-life has the ability to see a little way 
into the immediate future, just as the material eye 
has the ability to see a little way before and beyond it. 

35. Each spirit-life inhabits a material body that 
is capable of certain independent actions; a material 
body that was created in order to protect this spirit- 
life in the early stages of its development, or until it 
has evolved sufficient vitality, and strength and self- 
consciousness to no longer need such protection. 

36. Each physical or animal form contains two 
lives, each capable of certain independent actions. 
The one a spirit-life in course of evolution, and the 
other a material-life that may be destroyed in many 



12 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

different ways, and that can not in any case survive 
the departure of the spirit-life within it. 

37. All spirit-lives however highly developed or 
perfect must depend upon their material intellects to 
receive and to translate the impressions that are 
flashed to them out of the great beyond; and if these 
intellects are imperfect, or if they are not sufficiently 
sensitive to receive and to record the finest impressions 
and have not the ability to translate these impressions 
into language, then these spirits are not able to make 
known what they know and understand of the divine. 

38. Most human spirits are capable of receiving 
more information and knowledge and truth from the 
beyond than their intellects are capable of under- 
standing or of translating into language. 

39. Most human spirits know more of God and of 
the life beyond than they think they know; than they 
have any self-consciousness of knowing. 

40. The spirit-life is able to leave its material 
abode for brief periods of time without endangering 
the life of that abode. 

41. Spirit-life often leaves its material abode and 
goes out to meet that which it desires if it desires it 
strongly. Often spirit-life goes out to meet love and 
friendship and beauty and other things that may help 
it in its development. However spirit-life never goes 
out to meet trivial things, nor worldly things, nor 






SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 13 

things that belong to the physical life. 

42. Spirit-life no longer takes an interest in its 
material body if that body is worn out, or diseased, or 
too old. In such cases the spirit-life waits to depart; 
is willing to take unto itself another material form if 
it has not yet finished its journey here; that is has not 
yet evolved beyond the need of a material form. 

43. Some spirits are fettered; are retarded in 
their development by the physical forms or bodies 
which they inhabit, and to such spirits the parting 
or what we call: "Death," comes as a great blessing* 

44. All invisible spirit-lives that remain invisible 
to us are superior to us; have evolved above us, and 
have no further need of a material body, as we have. 

45. The invisible spirits are the superior spirits, 
and they may be around and about us without our 
knowledge. 

46. All spiritual communications must reach us 
through the harmony of silence, or the solitude of 
nature; must reach us when we are alone with God 
and all is still. 

47. Material sounds produce discords and inter- 
fere with what nature has to say. 

48. Material life is weak, is frail, is imperfect, and 
can easily be destroyed; and because this is so spirit- 
life is forced to frequently take its departure, and to 



U SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

occupy many different forms and shapes and material 
bodies in course of its evolution. 

49. All spirit-life seeks to conceal itself from all 
save those who are able to understand — seeks to 
conceal itself from all save those who have reached 
the same height in their development that it has 
reached. 

50. That spirit-life that can soar to the most 
lofty height, and there enter into and intermingle 
with the most lofty developed spirits, is itself highly 
developed, and has begun to blend gradually into that 
life that exists beyond the material plain. 

51. We can not counsel with our spirit-life upon 
anything but the important things of life. Such as 
the good, the beautiful, the true — spiritual things. 

If we seek to counsel our spirit-life on the trivial — 
the ordinary — things of life, it is silent — makes no 
answer — has nothing to say. 

52. The more highly developed we are spiritually 
the nearer our lives become a harmony, a poem, a 
song. 

53. Poets are spirits that are highly developed, 
and all spirits must some time become poets because 
all spirits will some time reach that stage in their 
development where all things are poetical; will reach 
that stage in their development where all is harmony 
and no discord can prevail. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 15 

54. Though all spirits will reach that stage in their 
development where all things are poetical, and will 
become poets, not all will give expression to the 
beauty and to the grandeur that will be theirs. 

55. Most spirits that are in human form are not 
sufficiently developed to live wisely — are not sufficient- 
ly developed to get the most out of life. 

56. Most spirits that are in human form possess 
but imperfectly developed consciousness — are yet 
far from the end of their journey in human form. 

57. To the spirit-life that has not yet reached a 
high state of development, the trivial things of life 
may appear great, and the great things of life may not 
appear at all. 

58. Each spirit-life must attain the same amount 
of development before it can cross the bridge into the 
land where no material bodies are to be found, or are 
necessary. 

59. Spirit-life never sleeps. Only the physica 
mind sleeps. And during the slumber of the physi 
cal mind the spirit-life often leaves its material abode 
for brief periods of time; often leaves its material 
abode and goes forth into the spiritual world to visit 
and to learn much that it should know. 

60. Spirit-life knows no rest, nor seeks any, nor 
desires any until it has completed its journey. But 



16 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

when spirit-life is retarded in its development — when 
it is held back because it is out of harmony with the 
good — it grows restless and suffers much anxiety. 

61. Not all human spirits understand the law of 
Spiritual Evolution. 

62. The spirit-life that is in man is related to the 
spirit-life that is in the flower, or in the tree, and when 
man observes the beauty of these it is their inner — or 
spirit-beauty that he most often observes. It is their 
inner — or spirit-beauty that most often astonishes 
him and excites his admiration. 

63. Spirit-life is not interested in the things that 
concern material life — is not interested in the things 
that are not of the spiritual sphere of life. 

64. Trust your subconscious nature — your spirit- 
ual self — with any important mission you may desire 
because your spirit-life can be trusted and can be de- 
pended upon to learn secrets and secure information 
that is beyond the ability of your intellect to other- 
wise learn or secure. 

65. Your spirit-life may be able to fulfil the 
mission assigned to it in a day, or in a week, or in a 
year, — but be patient! — your spirit-life will fulfil the 
mission assigned to it. 

66. The food of the spirit — of the spirit-life — is 
love and sympathy, and trust and goodness, and 
kindness. All the virtues are the food of the spirit. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 17 

67. He knows most of God who is the most highly- 
developed spiritually, for spiritual development leads 
to God through nature. 

68. Nature speaks to us of God. Does in fact 
reveal to us God's laws, and work, and beauty. 

69. Nature is the source of all our wisdom. It 
is from nature that all truths are to be learned. 

70. All depends upon our attitude whether we are 
to learn from nature or not. 

71. If we would speak with nature we must ap- 
proach her with expectations, and humbly, as we 
would approach God. 

72. A knowledge of nature and of nature's God 
can not be learned, or acquired from others. It must 
be attained through experience; through a close and 
harmonious communication with nature. And this 
communication with nature can come only through 
spiritual evolution and the gradual blending of our 
life with all the life that is in nature. 

73. Nature never speaks to those who are un- 
worthy of being spoken to — to those who lack suf- 
ficient spiritual development, or to those who ap- 
proach her as though they merely wished to counsel 
with her upon some important question. 

74. We can never get too close to nature ; can never 
learn too much of her. 



18 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

75. Out in the silence with nature, goodness 
reigns, virtue is to be found, and every evil either 
takes to its heels or ceases to be. 

76. In the silence with nature or in solitude, we 
have a chance to enjoy our own society, to get ac- 
quainted with our spirit-life, and perchance to learn 
who we are and what we are, and why we are. 

77. That society in which none intrude save the 
silence and the harmony of nature is the best possible 
society, and the most companionable, and lofty, and 
serene, and godlike. 

78. All nature is a temple; a sacred place where 
each man should go alone to worship, or to live, if he 
would be near to God. 

79. Just as there is a harmony that prevails and 
fills all nature, so is there a discord that is to be found 
everywhere in society, or where two or more human 
beings are gathered together. 

80. Nature is able to reach us even in the heart of 
a great city, and to help us to live wisely though we 
are far from her temple and too much a slave of com- 
mercialism to behold all her beauty or understand 
most of her laws. 

81. Nature loves us — calls to us — and will not in 
any case allow any of us to become completely, en- 
tirely lost to her. Nature will not allow any of us 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 19 

to entirely escape from her temple, or out from under 
her care, or parental influence. 

82. Out in the silence with nature man becomes 
conscious of the fact that all nature is filled with har- 
mony. 

83. The harmony that is in nature, which men hear 
only in solitude, or in the silence with nature, thrills 
the highly developed spirit-lives more completely 
than does that highly cultivated music of society. 

84. The music that is in nature is the most lofty 
of all music, and has the most elevating influence of 
all music upon those of us who are able to hear it. 

85. Nature is the only healing force in the world 
and nature is more able to heal us out in the silence 
than anywhere else. 

86. Nature discloses to us just as much of her 
beauty as we are prepared to appreciate, and no more. 

87. All nature is set to music, is by nature musical, 
and each separate thing in nature has its own melody 
that it prefers to render. 

88. He can not be otherwise than good who spends 
his life in the silence with nature. 

89. It is when we are out in the silence with nature 
that most of our lofty thoughts come; and they come 
unattended and unannounced, and as direct as if 
fired at us from the barrel of a gun. 



20 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

90. He who lives alone with nature fears no 
danger — is afraid of no foe — dares to look life in the 
face. 

91. To those who are out of harmony with the 
purpose of life, nature sometimes appears as a cold, 
heartless, relentless force that is to be feared, and is 
feared. 

92. From nature we can learn all that it is neces- 
sary for us to know in this life. 

93. Nature is the supreme authority on God, and 
therefore on life. 

94. He who fears to be and to live in the soli- 
tude with nature fears not nature but nature's God — 
is not living as wisely nor as well as he should — has 
some sin from which he should depart. 

95. Nature reveals herself to those only who go 
forth to meet her in sympathy and love. 

96. Nature conceals her real beauty, her inner- 
self from all save those who love her, and who go forth 
alone into the silence with expectations, hoping to 
meet her. 

97. If you would know God, first try to become 
in some way worthy of God's acquaintance and then 
go seek God alone in the silence with nature, for it is 
in the silence with nature that God is most often to 
be found. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 21 

98. Not to obey the laws of nature is to be an 
outlaw — is to be forever and eternally on the side of 
the bad — is to live out of harmony with the purpose 
of life. 

99. Nature never conceals her beauty. Her 
beauty is always apparent — always to be seen — but 
some persons are resolved not to see the beauty of 
nature. Some persons turn their eyes away and focus 
them upon the more trivial things and deny to them- 
selves the most beautiful pleasure upon earth. 

100. Nature has a language with which to converse 
with him who has an ear to hear but she never speaks 
to him who comes merely to observe and to study her. 
Nature reserves all her communications and conver- 
sations for those who love her — for those who are in 
sympathy and harmony with her. 

101. Nature is more refined than culture, more 
delicate, more sincere, and more beautiful. It is 
only when nature has been trifled with that it becomes 
coarse and in need of an artificial polish. 

102. All nature is on the march toward perfection. 

103. Nature, in the early stages of her evolution, 
was chiefly concerned with life. Beauty came as an 
after thought. 

104. All nature overflows in some way and in some 
direction. And this overflow in a man's nature re- 
veals the man. 



22 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

105. Nature never harms us. She soothes us, 
quiets our restless nerves and fills us with harmony 
and health. 

106. The more we love nature, the more nature 
reveals herself to us and the more rapidly we evolve 
toward the divine. 

107. Nature is the supreme law and the court of 
last appeal on all questions of right and wrong. 

108. A legal right is no right at all in the court of 
love. Nature does not recognize any such a right, 
neither does God. It is man only, among all of God's 
creation, who is so stupid as to assume that a legal 
right exists, and has precedence over the sacred rights 
of love. 

109. Nature is more serene, and calm, and more 
lofty than man. Man lives in perpetual discord while 
all nature is rilled with harmony and peace. 

110. Nature can sleep, but man must keep awake, 
or if he sleeps, must expect to dream because man's 
restlessness follows him even into slumberland. 

111. Nature has not yet succeeded. Her work is 
still in the experimental stage. 

112. Nature must do away with fear before she 
can proceed much further on her road to perfection. 

113. Nature has not yet succeeded in making a 
man. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 23 

114. The natural is the spiritual. Every effort 
that nature makes is a spiritual effort. 

115. Nature is forever forsaking the old for the 
new — is each day becoming more enlightened and 
intelligent. 

116. The life germ in all nature is spirit, and the 
only difference there is in this germ is in its develop- 
ment — its evolution — its growth. 

117. Nature has a language that requires no vocal 
sounds or words. A language that is more eloquent, 
more melodious, more beautiful, and more persuasive 
than that of any other language in the world. 

118. It is the silence of nature that speaks with 
so much melody — that tells us so much of God — 
that fills our ears with harmony, and our spirit-life 
with rapture. 

119. Next to the silence of nature, beauty is the 
most important thing that God has to disclose to us 

120. It is in the silence with nature that all the 
wisdom of the world is whispered — that all the secrets 
of life are talked of, and nothing of importance to 
man is left undiscussed. 

121. To listen in on the silence of nature is to 
listen in on God and to learn what our Creator is 
about. 



2\ SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

122. The silence of nature reveals the first faint 
sound of every change that is to be wrought in the 
world and in life. It tells us all that we need to know 
upon every subject on which it is necessary that we 
be informed. 

123. The most delicious fruits that nature yields 
are all spiritual fruits. They are spiritual enlighten- 
ment, increased self -consciousness, wisdom, an in- 
creased sense of the beautiful, a knowledge of life and 
what it is about, and an understanding of God. 

124. In few natures is love and friendship and 
hate constant. In most natures these emotions ebb 
and flow. 

125. Nature is more concerned with the purpose 
of life than she is with mere life. Mere existence is 
of less interest to nature than evolution — than 
development — though existence is necessary in order 
that the evolution may be attained. If nature 
thought that she could produce nothing more perfect 
and more lofty than she has produced, she would be- 
come despondent and discouraged and cease to 
struggle. 

126. Morals have to do with the social relations 
of man, and not with nature or God. Nature and 
God are concerned with the good, and not with the 
moral. 

127. Nature remembers, not what was, but what 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 25 

is. She concerns herself only with the present and 
gives no thought to the past. 

128. Nature has laws that deal out justice in all 
cases of right and wrong, automatically, and never 
do these laws fail to be completely, entirely, accurate- 
ly just. 

129. The reason why we should go to nature in 
its most simple forms to study spirit-life is because 
spirit-life is found there in its most simple form — is 
found there before it has become so highly developed 
and complicated as it is in man. 

130. Nature is inhuman — yes, nature is inhuman 
because she is more than human ; is nearer the divine. 

131. Just as man at times prefers to be alone, so 
does nature like to retire into solitude and there be 
undisturbed. 

Man is not always welcome when he disturbs the 
solitude of nature. 

132. Nature is largely feminine in character. 
She has all the feminine characteristics that we know 
best, and love best in woman. 

133. The way to eternal life lays through nature. 
Nature is the gateway that leads to heaven. But 
there are many of these gateways in nature and we 
must pass through all of them before we can arrive at 
that celestial city. 



26 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

134. Some men seek nature to learn of her; other 
and wiser men, seek nature to communicate through 
her with that which is beyond her — the divine. 

135. In nature it is not the flower that is the most 
interesting, nor the bird, nor the tree; but the life — 
the spirit — that is in the flower, and the bird, and the 
tree. 

136. The real beauty that is in nature is not in 
its form, or shape, or color; but in the life that is con- 
cealed by its form, and shape, and color. 

137. All nature is a bible, and the only bible that 
has any vestige of authority in the universe. Yet 
many men who can not interpret the inner meaning 
of this bible, pretend to read this book for us, and to 
interpret its meaning to us. 

138. Those only are qualified to speak of nature 
who are in sympathetic and emotional rapport with 
nature. 

139. No one can be in harmony with nature who 
is out of harmony with God, with the good, with the 
purpose of life. 

140. Nature is more important to us than friends, 
than books, than wealth. Is equal in importance to 
us with our own life. 

141. The man who knows not nature knows not 
God because God is the life-spark that is in nature. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 27 

142. In nature we are able to find God in his most 
simple form; in the only form in which we are able to 
grasp him and to understand him. 

143. Nearly everything in nature prefers to be 
left alone to live its own life in its own way; prefers 
to be left alone to work out its own destiny. 

144. Nature in her attempt to realize her concep- 
tion of life and beauty begins on a small scale and pro- 
ceeds upward with infinite pains and patience. 

145. We belong to nature and nature to us. There 
is no difference. The material that is in us and in 
nature is the same, and the life that is in both of us 
is the same life. And this life differs only in its evolu- 

ion — in its development. 

146. To get in harmony with nature we must be 
good, must obey all of nature's laws, and in just so 
far as we obey all of nature's laws can we hope to 
understand nature and the spirit-life that is in nature 
and in us — is us. 

147. God is our father, nature our mother, and it 
is upon our mother that our development mostly 
depends. 

148. Nature is our mother, our most valuable 
friend and guide, and like unto the human mother 
who gave us birth, nature should be loved and 
respected and followed. 



28 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

149. Nature has improved by experience. She 
is able to do today what she was not able to do a few 
hundred centuries ago, or when the spirit-life that is 
in man was first intrusted in her care. 

150. Nature is not so proud of man as man 
assumes. She loves him less than she loves her 
latest born — that tiny spark of God that is more in 
need of her parental love and care, and of whom, 
perhaps, she expects more than from man. 

151. Nature is the only authority upon the sub- 
ject of life that is worth considering. 

152. Nature rules by law and not by preaching. 
Believe in nature or not as you please, but if you are 
wise you will keep in harmony with nature's laws, 
whether you believe in nature or not. 

153. Nature offers us everything, but we must be 
patient. A thousand centuries is but a little while 
with nature, and nature does not intend to give us 
everything at once. A little at a time. Things 
given to us gradually through an evolution is nature's 
way. 

154. All that is most deep and true, and most 
profound and beautiful in nature can not be expressed 
in words — can only be suggested. And we can under- 
stand that which is suggested to us by nature in so 
far only as we are in harmonious rapport with nature. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 29 

155. Nature keeps selecting and rejecting through- 
out all the early stages of evolution. She allows noth- 
ing to proceed far in its development that does not 
satisfy her; and the moment that any of her work 
fails to come up to her standard she begins to recon- 
struct it, or to destroy it. 

156. Nature is willing to create a thousand writers 
in order that she may select one that is suitable to be 
her scribe; in order that she may find one that is 
capable of observing her, and detecting her whims, 
and fancies, and purposes, and giving expression to 
these. Nature loves to be reported but not to be 
falsely reported. 

157. Nature alone knows God, has ever felt him, 
or is capable of feeling him, and in just so far as we 
are in perfect harmony with nature are we capable of 
feeling and knowing God. However our knowledge 
of God depends upon our consciousness and our con- 
sciousness depends upon evolution. He who is the 
most highly developed spiritually is the most able to 
understand God, or nature, or life. 

158. That is our nature which we have a tendency 
to do, not that which we do. 

159. Our nature is revealed by everything that 
we do, or say, or think — by our interpretation of 
everything. 

160. Nature is God's masterpiece. And there is 
nothing superior to nature in the universe. 



3 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

161. Nature is the master force; the power that 
is in control of life. And that man is simply foolish 
who does not study nature and strive to get into 
harmony with nature and nature's work and purpose. 

162. Nature is the master workman that is mould- 
ing and shaping our lives, whether we believe in 
nature or not. But nature can do this work much 
more perfectly and successfully if we believe in her 
and are in sympathy with her and her purpose. 

163. Some spirits flee from the silence, or from the 
solitude of nature, because their lives are out of 
harmony with the good, with nature, with God. 
Some spirits flee from the silence of nature because 
they fear to disclose to nature their real attitude 
toward the purpose of life. 

164. To flee from the silence, from the solitude, 
of nature is a confession of guilt — is an admission that 
one is living out of harmony with the law of Spiritual 
Evolution — is an admission that one is retarding and 
delaying one's own spiritual-self on its road to per- 
fection. 

165. The spirit-life that is in nature is the only 
important thing that is in nature and the only thing 
in nature that has life. 

166. Nature is less interested in her physical 
development than she is in her spiritual development. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 31 

She cares less for her form or shape or color than she 
does for her life-spark, her spirit, her inner, or real 
self. 

167. Nature is the source of all enlightenment, of 
all knowledge, of all wisdom, of all goodness and virtue 
and worth. Nature is the source of all things that 
are, can be, or will be. Nature is the means by which 
God is made manifest to us. 

168. Nature is our guiding star, the power that 
leads us under any and all conditions. 

169. Nature is bent upon winning us away from 
the material things of life. She would take us by the 
hand and lead us out into the silence, and show us 
God; the God who sits upon his throne and rules the 
universe through law and order. 

No temple is quite so sacred as this silence into 
which nature would lead us, no prayer is quite so 
serious, or thought so lofty, or feeling so serene and 
peaceful. 

He who has not been led by nature out into the 
silence where God reigns and there been made to feel 
the presence of God has not yet experienced religion 
or been lifted up to the plain of spiritual life. 

170. There is a brain in nature that directs and 
leads, and controls and shows us the way. And this 
brain is of a spiritual nature, like our subconscious 
mind, yet far more powerful and more wise and serene 
and certain. 



32 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

171. Nature has a privacy into which none dare 
intrude until they are admitted by nature herself. 
And nature never admits us into the inner courts of 
her life until we have reached a very high state of 
spiritual evolution — until we are near to being divine. 

172. The external beauty that we see in nature is 
not worth mentioning in comparison to that beauty 
that we shall observe as we advance further into the 
courts of nature. 

173. Nature never discloses herself to some men — 
never admits some men even into the outer court of 
her life, nor discloses to them the first faint blush of 
her beauty, nor the first audible sound of her voice. 

174. There are as many strata of beauty in each 
separate thing in nature as there are strata of life 
in the observer of nature. 

175. That which is not beautiful does not belong 
to God. 

176. We are at the beginning of beauty. Beauty 
will increase, and so will our ability to perceive the 
beautiful, as we and the world evolve towardj per- 
fection. 

177. With evolution comes the beautiful, and the 
ability to perceive the beautiful. 

178. The amount of beauty that we see in any- 
thing depends largely upon us, and this beauty may 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 33 

range anywhere from mere attractiveness, or charm, 
to the sublime. 

179. The lover of the beautiful, the dreamer, the 
poet, the artist is many degrees nearer heaven, and 
farther from earth than the practical man. 

180. Love is a great beautifier, and so is sympathy, 
and faith, and charity, and trust. All things that 
tend to produce harmony between us and the pur- 
pose of life are great beautifiers. 

181. That church, that religion that is not utterly, 
entirely, completely, wholly beautiful is not true: is 
in some way false: is false in all ways in which it is 
not utterly, entirely, completely beautiful. 

182. The beautiful is the good, and anything that 
tends to destroy the beautiful is the bad. 

183. A bad disposition is one of the greatest of 
all beauty destroyers. 

184. That which possesses beauty grows more 
and more beautiful the longer, and the more closely 
we observe it, — and all things possess beauty. 

185. Each day a new world of beauty is unrolled 
for those who seek the beautiful. 

186. It is a sin not to seek to behold the beautiful 

187. There is indescribable beauty concealed 
even in the most insignificant creation or production 
of nature. 



34 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

188. All the beauty that we have known and be- 
come accustomed to in life is merely a trivial in com- 
parison to the beauty that will yet be revealed to us, 
a little at a time, as we evolve higher and higher. 

189. All beauty increases for us as rapidly as our 
consciousness increases. Therefore those who are 
the most highly developed spiritually are able to 
behold beauties that as yet do not exist to us. 

190. We are often elevated and enthused and in- 
spired by the beauty that is conveyed to us in a poem 
or a thought, but it seldom occurs to us how much 
more beautiful and vital that beauty must have been 
to him who perceived it, and translated it into 
larguage for us. 

191. We often lament because the creators; the 
translators of the beautiful are so poorly paid, but 
we never dream how much they really get out of 
having conceived and translated into language a 
beautiful poem or thought. 

192. All things are more beautiful and more lofty 
than we picture them even with our spiritual eye. 

193. All beauty of the highest order is spiritual; 
is beauty that is not discernible with the material 
eye: is beauty that is beheld only by the eye of the 
inner life. 

194. All beauty is primarily spiritual, owes its 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 35 

perception to the spirit-life, and is by nature a part 
of that life. 

195. All beauty belongs to the spirit-life. Even 
that beauty that we call "Physical" has that within 
it that the spirit-life values and cherishes and trans- 
forms into spiritual wealth and beauty. 

196. Physical beauty depends upon form and 
shape and color — depends upon physical appearance. 
But spiritual beauty does not depend upon any of 
these because it has no permanent form, or shape, or 
color, — is continually changing, — yet it is the most 
beautiful of all beauty. 

197. The most beautiful thing in the universe is 
life — spirit-life. But the beauty of spirit-life varies 
and increases with its evolution — with its develop- 
ment. 

198. The beauty of everything increases with 
spiritual development, and those creatures that are 
yet in the lower stages of spiritual evolutions are as 
yet unable to appreciate — perhaps even to behold the 
beautiful. 

199. Spirit beauty is the only beauty that will 
bear close inspection. All other beauty is best ob- 
served from a distance. 

200. Often the inner beauty that we see in those 
about us is merely the reflection of our own internal 
beauty. 



36 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

201. In our effort to reach and to possess some 
physical or material beauty that we see, we begin to 
perceive and to possess some spiritual beauty that 
did not exist to us before. 

202. In exchange for some physical or material 
beauty that we desire we are often given some spirit- 
ual beauty that is more beautiful and hallowed and 
divine 

203. When we begin to leave the physical plane 
of living and to enter the spiritual plane, all things 
become more and more beautiful and godlike. 

204. We are always glorified by that beauty — that 
love — that reaches the spiritual plane of life. 

205. The perception of the beautiful is a spiritual 
test. It reveals to those who are in a position to see 
how far they have advanced on their road to perfec- 
tion. 

206. Beauty is a food upon which our spirits 
feed. It is a nourishment that helps us to gain more 
and more spiritual vitality. 

207. The beautiful is the divine. And the more 
completely we possess the beautiful, the nearer we 
are to the divine. 

208. All is beautiful. There is beauty every- 
where and in everything. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 37 

209. We are apt to pay the most homage to that 
beauty which we see the most clearly, and some of 
us are more able to see material beauty, than we are 
spiritual beauty. 

210. Spiritual beauty is not only the most lofty 
of all beauty, but it is also the most difficult for most 
persons to perceive. 

211. Beauty is both like a fire and like a frost. 
Neglect beauty and it freezes you. Approach too 
close to beauty and it burns you. Occupy the right 
relation to beauty and it is your most gracious friend 
and helpmate. 

212. How can those who are too blind to observe 
the beauty of earth expect to behold the beauty of 
h eaven ? 

213. Every beautiful thought that we perceive, 
every lofty sentiment that we feel, tends not only to 
elevate us but to help us in our evolution toward the 
divine. 

214. If our inner — our spirit-life is beautiful, it 
will find a way to express itself that is beautiful for 
beauty never conceals itself. The beautiful is too 
divine, too godlike, to seek concealment. 

215. Everything about us takes on the aspects, 
and the color, and the beauty of that which is within 
us — takes on the aspects and the color of our inner, 
or spiritual self. 



38 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

216. The nearer we approach beauty, the more 
beautiful we become. Our inner — or spirit-life 
absorbs all the beauty that it perceives and makes it 
a part of itself. 

217. Next to the creation and maintenance of 
life, beauty is the most important thing that nature 
has undertaken and the one thing upon which she 
has spent most of her time and talent. 

218. Beauty precedes the transplanting of all life 
from one form to another. It prepares the way for 
all such changes in nature and leads up to them. 

219. All things that come to us direct from nature 
are good and are true, and can no more be bad or false 
than God can be bad, or false. 

220. The moral is a mere trivial in comparison 
with the good. 

221. Being good is merely being sensible. It is 
good sense followed by wise acts. 

222. The good is the staff of life. It is that which 
makes spiritual development possible. 

223. He who is good is in harmony with the pur- 
pose of life. 

224. Only the good understand the value of being 
good. 

225. Desire only the good because from the good 
only will you receive perfect satisfaction. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 39 

226. Goodness is a necessity and all must become 
good in the end. 

227. Goodness is necessary to spiritual evolution, 
to development, to life. 

228. He who is good is strong, while he who is 
not good lacks strength — is not highly developed 
spiritually — has not advanced far on his road to per- 
fection. 

129. The good and the beautiful are one. For 
that which is good is beautiful, while that which has 
not yet attained goodness has not yet developed 
sufficiently to be beautiful. 

230. Goodness is an innocence that has knowl- 
edge — is an innocence that is no longer ignorant. 
Goodness is an innocence that has become enlight- 
ened — that has developed into something finer 
and more pure and God-like than it was before. 

231. We can not approach close to the good with- 
out approaching close to nature and to God. 

232. There is a vast difference between the good 
and the moral. The one is the fullfilling of the pur- 
pose of life: the other the obeying of the rules relat- 
ing to conduct that are laid down by society. 

233. Everything that tends to help nature in the 
accomplishment of her purpose, whatever that pur- 
pose may be, is good; and everything that tends to 



40 vSPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

retard, to delay nature in the accomplishment of her 
purpose, whatever that purpose may be, is bad. All 
other conceptions of the good and the bad, of the 
right and the wrong, are false conceptions — are con- 
ceptions that are based upon a misunderstanding of 
the purpose of life. 

234. It requires strength to be good, and most 
persons who are not good, are so because they lack 
strength — spiritual strength. 

235. Some of us have to struggle to be good. 
Others of us would have to struggle to keep from being 
good. 

236. There are persons in this world who are good 
because they can not help it, and other persons who 
are bad for precisely the same reason. 

237. Real angels and real devils can not possibly 
exist in human form, or in the material world. 

238. All who are in this world are struggling 
toward the good, and those that are yet too far from 
the good may seem to be utterly, entirely, completely 
bad. 

239. Our courage helps to decide how good and 
how bad we can be. It prescribes the limits between 
which we must live our life. 

240. Goodness, like happiness, is contagious — is 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 41 

catching. Be good and others will become like you 
— good. 

241. Nothing is too good to be believed, or ex- 
pected, or to be realized. 

242. He is good who lives as wisely as he knows 
how to live. 

243. We must be good to be able to live in soli- 
tude — to be able to live in the silence with nature. 
And he who lives in the silence with nature will each 
day become better than he was the day before. 

244. The only investment that is safe, that is 
sure to pay a dividend, is goodness: is sympathy: is 
love. 

245. The moment that we begin to perceive the 
good, we begin to appreciate it and to possess it. 

246. The more closely we approach the good, the 
more we are attracted by it, and the less we are 
attracted by the bad. 

247. Goodness is something that does not greatly 
concern some persons because these persons have not 
yet reached a point in their development where good- 
ness becomes of vital importance to their future 
evolution. 

248. The minute that the good becomes of vital 
importance to the spiritual evolution of a person, that 



42 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

minute that person becomes profoundly interested in 
the good, and, instinctively, begins to seek out the 
pathway that leads to the good — that leads to a 
harmonious relation with the purpose of life. 

249. To be good is to be in harmony with the laws 
of nature, is to be in harmony with the conditions 
that tend to develop spirit-life the most rapidly, and 
to bring to that life the most vitality. 

250. The difference between the good and the bad 
is a spiritual, not a moral, difference — is a difference in 
their spiritual development, in their consciousness, in 
their nearness to the light — to the divine. 

251. He who knows not the good, but must follow 
the moral guide-posts set up by society, is not wise, 
or highly spiritually developed, nor even learned, 
though he may be a graduate of all the schools. 

252. That which is good is in harmony with life, 
and life's development and purpose; and that which 
is bad is that which is out of harmony with life, and 
is therefore that which tends to retard life's develop- 
ment and to destroy its purpose. 

253. There are many different heights and de- 
grees of goodness, and we must reach the most lofty 
of all these heights before we can have attained our 
complete development. 

254. A man must in some way be good to be an 
idealist, and the better he is the more of an idealist 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 43 

he will be and the more lofty will be his conception 
of the good. 

255. When one has once become good — has tasted 
the divine essence of goodness — though he may again 
become bad, he will return to the good, and no power 
on earth or in hell can do more than retard or delay his 
return for a few brief years or lives. 

256. We dislike those who are too good because 
they are too far above us. We wish everybody to 
live on our plane of life, or a little beneath us. 

257. It is wise to be moderate in most things but 
not in virtue and goodness. There is no extreme to 
wise living — to living in harmony with nature and 
with the purpose of life. 

258. Every spirit-life tries to be as good as we 
believe it to be, and if our belief in that life is suf- 
ficiently strong, we may help that life to more rapidly 
attain its development. 

259. Just as we must be more than moral to be 
really good, so must we be more than good to be 
divine. 

260. In goodness there is beauty, poetry, music, 
rhythm, harmony. 

261. It is a sure sign of goodness not to be able 
to think that our enemies are bad — to perceive that 
they also are good. 



44 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

262. The laws underlying goodness and operating 
through the good can be reduced to an exact science, 
because these laws are among the fixed laws of nature 
and never vary a hair's breadth in their operation. 

263. Everything works together for good. Even 
our evils tend to show us the way to goodness. 

264. All things that are good are the fruit of 
spiritual development, and are closely related to each 
other. 

265. No good that we can conceive is beyond our 
ability to attain if we will be patient and strive 
faithfully to attain that good; but when we have 
attained that good we will find another good, that 
before we could not see, or conceive of, just a little 
ahead of us and we will wish to attain that good also, 
and so we will keep on struggling upward toward the 
good until we finally attain our spiritual development 
and no longer need to be fettered by a material body 
or form. 

266. All things tend toward goodness. Nothing 
in the universe is bad — entirely, completely bad. 

267. Do not look for goodness upon the surface 
of life. Goodness is more apt to be found beneath 
the surface — within the life. 

268. Those who are good through fear or through 
policy are not good because goodness is an attitude — 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 45 

a harmonious relation to law — and can not spring 
from an ignoble or unworthy motive. 

269. Men may be deceived by the seeming good- 
ness that springs from an ignoble attitude, but not 
the law, or nature, or God. 

270. All things that are good tend upward — tend 
to help us in our spiritual development — and all 
things that are bad tend downward — tend to retard, 
to delay us in our spiritual evolution. 

271. God is on the other side of nature from us. 

272. The road to God leads through nature. It 
is a road that only a few have observed closely, and 
scarcely a hundred have thought to follow for any 
distance, yet it is the road that leads to God. 

273. If we could penetrate through nature we 
would come into the presence of God. 

274. If nature does not speak to you of God, and 
tell you all you need to know, then the time has not 
yet come when it is necessary that you should know 
God. 

275. Go out into the silence with nature and 
listen. Perhaps God has something that he wishes 
to say to you. 

276. You must seek God in solitude, or in the 
silence with nature if you would find him, or converse 
with him, or learn to understand him. 



US SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

277. God is the God of nature, though each sep- 
arate thing in nature may have its own guiding star 
or spirit that leads it the way that God wishes it 
to go. 

278 Not even God is superior to nature because 
God is nature — is nature in its perfection — is nature 
in that perfection toward which all life is evolving. 

279. Those who condemn God in nature do so 
through ignorance and lack of enlightenment and 
development. They not only do not know God, but 
they are not sufficiently high in the scale of spirit- 
ual evolution to know or to understand him. 

280. The nearness of God to us depends upon our 
spiritual development, and this development depends 
largely upon our attitude toward life. 

281. Nothing is that is not of God. Therefore 
all that is, is of value to us in our attempt to form an 
accurate conception of God. 

282. Fundamentally God is nature, and all that 
has sprung from nature. 

283. Harmony is the touchstone by which truth 
can be ascertained. 

284. That thought or idea that is in harmony with 
the purpose of life is the truth. 

285. The road that leads to contentment and 
peace, and happiness and enlightenment, and wisdom 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 47 

and spiritual development is harmony — is to get into 
harmony with nature, with the purpose of life. 

286. He who is in harmony with the purpose of 
life is good; has faith; is developing spiritually; is 
not selfish, or controled by greed, or hate, or fear, or 
distrust. 

287. There must be harmony between the spirit- 
life and nature before there can be harmony of thought 
or of perception. 

288. All real friendships must spring from spirit- 
ual harmony. 

289. Harmony, rhythm, melody, music prevails 
through everything that is good, that is helpful to the 
evolution of spirit-life. 

290. It is more important that we keep in har- 
mony with all spirit-life than that we get in harmony 
with the world — than that we get in harmony with 
material or physical life. 

291. All things are tuned to music, to harmony, 
to law. And when this harmony is broken, the law 
is broken, and discord and disaster result. 

292. Harmony is not the result of belief, or faith, 
or religious attitude. It is the result of law. 

293. Get in harmony with the purpose of life, 
with nature, and all is well. 



IS SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

294. Just as harmony prevails throughout all 
nature, so does discord prevail wherever unnatural 
men are to be found. 

295. All clubs and libraries and churches and 
places where men gather are filled with discord — 
with discordant thought waves. Thought waves 
from different minds cross and recross each other and 
destroy the harmony that should prevail — that does 
prevail — out in the silence with nature, or in the 
solitude of one's home or study. 

296. All unhappiness is the result of being out 
of harmony with the purpose of life. All discontent 
is the result of a discord between nature and us — is 
the result of a discord that may be caused by anything 
that retards spiritual evolution and defeats the pur- 
pose of life or nature. 

297. We seldom live the life we think we live. 

298. Everything in life costs us more than we 
think. 

299. There are persons whom we can not know in 
life, who are made known to us in death. 

300. Most human lives are filled with nothing but 
emptiness. They sail into the harbor of death with 
nothing on board worth mentioning. 

301. There is in the life of the most contemptible 
human being that which would arouse our sympathy 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 49 

and our compassion if we but fully understood. 

302. If you would know the kind of life you live, 
learn to note the kind of thoughts you think, and the 
kind of subjects on which you love most to converse. 

303. Only those are prepared to live who are pre- 
pared to die. 

304. Life is not measured by years, but by living; 
by the amount of good it has brought us ; the distance 
on the road to spiritual perfection it has carried us; 
and the nearness to God it has left us. 

305. Life is spirit. And the development of this 
spirit-life accounts for all the different species of 
life, and for the development of each of these species. 

306. There is poetry, and rhythm, and music in 
everything that is in harmony with the purpose of 
life. 

307. The most important question of life is: 
"How best to live. How to live to get the most 
spiritual development out of life." 

308. Most of us do not get as much out of life as 
we should because we do not know how to live. 

309. To possess a life that is full of beauty and 
poetry and music and truth is to possess great spirit- 
ual wealth and development. 

310. To live is to evolve. 



SO SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

311. Most of the things of life are so trivial that 
we can well put them off for a few centuries and devote 
our time to living. We need not, in fact, do these 
trivial things at all if we do not wish. They do not 
count in the scheme of things. They do not make us 
more wise, nor better, nor help us in our spiritual 
development. They are merely a few pebbles in our 
pathway, and need not impede our progress unless 
we stop to pick them up and to carry them about with 
us. 

312. It is our attitude toward the purpose of life, 
and not our knowledge or faith in that purpose, that 
is important — that is necessary to our spiritual 
development. It does not matter what we believe, 
but it is all important that we believe, and that we 
get into harmony with our belief. Spiritual develop- 
ment requires of us, first: that we get in harmony with 
our belief. And second: that we are passive and 
allow our belief to lead us toward the light. 

313. All life is spirit. And all spirit-life has the 
power to generate certain material activities that 
produce a kind of life that is independent of spirit- 
life so long as it is in contact with spirit-life as a gen- 
erating force. But remove the spirit-life from con- 
tact with this material life, and the material life 
ceases to live, or to have life. 

314. The life element, or spirit that is in man does 
not differ in any essential from the life element or 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 51 

apirit that is in a tree, or a flower, or a bird, or other 
snimal, or plant, or mineral. Does not differ in any 
essential. Does not differ except in its evolution, 
or development. 

315. All life is but one life — spirit-life — differ- 
ently developed. 

316. Each spirit-life is but a spark of God, which 
through evolution will become like unto the God who 
gave it birth. 

317. If you wish to search for the spirit-life of one 
who has departed this life before having completed 
his evolution in human form, do not search in the 
spirit- world, but among the new born babes. 

318. All things of real spiritual value to life, and 
in life, are free to all who possess the ability to grasp 
them, and to understand them, and appreciate them. 
And the ability to grasp, and to understand, and 
appreciate spiritual things depends upon spiritual 
development — upon evolution. And spiritual evolu- 
tion depends largely upon our attitude toward the 
purpose of life; depends upon whether we are in 
harmony with nature and her laws, or not. 

319. In life we fight nearly all the time on the 
defence, and blindly. We do not understand how 
to live wisely, but we live wisely without under- 
standing. In life we believe one thing and do another, 



52 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

and know not that that which we do is more wise 
than that which we believe. 

320. Those who live profoundly, live serenely and 
calmly, and peacefully. It is those who live on the 
surface of life who suffer most from storms and tem- 
pests — whose lives are so full of discontent and un- 
happiness. 

321. To fully understand one's spirit-life is to 
understand the spirit-life of the universe, and to know 
what life is about. 

322. No one spark of life is of more importance 
than any other spark of life except in the progress it 
has made in its evolution. 

323. All — everything — depends upon our attitude 
toward life. We are all magnets that attract to us 
that which our inner, or spirit-life needs or desires. 

324. If your life is purely a physical one, or a 
mental one, do not imagine that you are near to 
heaven, or that you possess any exact knowledge of 
life, or of nature, or of God. 

325. All things in life come to us in fragments — 
in peices — and out of these fragments and pieces a 
successful life or failure must be built. 

326. In life we often meet again some of those 
whom we have known in former lives, and renew 
again the relation that formerly existed between us. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 53 

327. Many of our hates and fears and friendships 
and loves in this life are based upon acts and deeds 
and conditions that existed in some of our former 
lives. 

328. We are the sum total, not of one life but of 
all the lives that we have lived since God planted our 
spark of life in the first crude form of nature. 

329. Enumberable lives have been lived, and 
countless periods of time have been spent in the 
evolution of the life that is in each of us. 

330. Death is as natural as sleep, or birth, and 
no more to be feared. 

331. Death is an adventure into the unkown. It 
is a journey that none need fear. Especially not 
those whose bodies are worn out, or diseased. 

332. To fear death is not to trust life — is to be 
lacking in understanding, or faith, or both. 

333. Death is not sad, but the parting is sad. 

334. Death may bring us and the departed nearer 
to each other, or may keep us farther apart. All 
depends upon whether our love for each other is of 
the spirit-life or not. 

335. Death makes us young again. It is but the 
doorway that leads to a new life. And though we 
fail in our spiritual evolution and must return to 



54 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

earth again in human form, we gain by death another 
youth and youthful body in which to try again to 
attain our spiritual development. 

336. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution, death 
is of no consequence because death does not destroy 
life; does not impair, or delay life in its evolution; 
has no power to harm life whatever. 

337. Death is never sudden. The inner, or spirit- 
life is always conscious of the approach of death, and 
is ready to depart. 

338. Though death is never sudden or a surprise 
to the dying, yet it is so free from sensation, or feeling, 
or jar that the departed are not conscious of the 
passing over. 

339. Life blends into death, and death into life 
again without our being conscious of the change. 
We simply become conscious that we are alive, and 
if we have any consciousness of our former life, it is 
a vague and visionary one, as something apart from 
ourselves. 

340. The dead do not possess any great knowledge 
of what is in the beyond. All things are revealed 
to them, as to us, by a slow unfolding — an evolution. 

341. We live each of our lives in a compartment 
shut off from our past and our future by thick cur- 
tains, through which we can not see except imper- 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 55 

fectly, and only spiritual evolution has the power to 
lift these curtains or to remove them before us as we 
advance or retreat. 

342. We can not always believe that which we 
wish to believe. 

343. We seek to convince ourselves of the truth 
of that which we wish to believe with every means 
within our power. 

344. Our belief depends upon our enlightenment — 
upon our development — upon the point at which we 
have arrived in our spiritual evolution. 

345. Many persons wish to believe that which, 
as yet, they are unable to believe and therefore could 
not possibly live. 

346. Do not strive to believe that which for the 
moment your inner, or spirit-life can not accept as 
the truth because such a truth is not true to you and 
may never become true. 

Do not strive to believe that true which your inner- 
life rejects as untrue and as unnecessary to your 
spiritual evolution. 

347. It does not matter what we believe. Spirit- 
ual evolution does not depend upon belief. Besides 
our belief will change with our evolution. 

348. Our spiritual self is a better judge of what to 
believe than are our spiritual teachers. And never 



56 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

does our spiritual self believe in that which is no 
longer of use to it — in that which it has outgrown. 

349. That religion is the most true that contains 
the most wisdom — that is the most in harmony with 
the laws of nature. 

350. We live our religion, though not often the 
religion that we believe, or think we believe. 

351. Our religious belief is merely our explanation, 
or interpretation of the purpose of life; while our 
spiritual development is the point in life at which 
we have arrived. 

352. When any religious belief becomes lofty 
enough it ceases to have sect and united itself with 
all other religious beliefs that are lofty. 

353. That religion that answers to all your present 
spiritual requirements is your religion, and is true 
to you, though it may not answer to the spiritual 
requirements of another living soul, and therefore 
can not be true to them. 

354. Our religion is the sum total of all that we 
believe concerning life. 

355. All religions are good. All religions help us 
in our spiritual evolution. All religions accomplish 
their purpose. 

356. All religions fade and blend into each other. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 57 

357. All religions are, in all essentials, in harmony 
with the law of Spiritual Evolution, though this law 
as such may not be known to all of them. 

358. No religion can be true that excludes all 
other religions. 

359. That religion is the most lofty that is the 
most in harmony with all life. 

360. Our religious instinct seeks the light — the 
truth — and is never satisfied until it has obtained that 
for which it seeks. 

361. Our religious instinct does not depend upon 
reason or knowledge for enlightenment, but its en- 
lightenment is re-enforced and strengthened by these. 

362. All religious beliefs are good to those who 
believe them; are in fact the most lofty religious 
thought of which they are, for the moment, capable 
of understanding. 

363. A religion that fails to keep pace with us 
in our spiritual growth must be left behind — can 
not continue to be our religion. 

364. It would be almost impossible for us to ac- 
curately estimate what it has cost us to manufacture 
the world's present ideas of Christianity. 

365. If Christianity is to survive it must get in 
harmony with nature, with enlightenment, with 
knowledge, with reason, with God. 



58 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

366. Christianity can be saved only by Christians 
— can be saved only by Christians who have sense 
enough to bring their religion into harmony with 
nature. 

367. The Christian religion shows a marked spirit- 
ual development over the religion of the Jews, or 
the religion of Moses and the prophets. It occupies 
a more lofty height and is the product of a more 
highly developed consciousness. 

368. Most persons confuse the religion of Christ 
and the religion of the Jews, and try to mix these 
two religions, and to quote the one in support of the 
other, but this can not be successfully done because 
these two religions do not entirely agree. 

369. Christ, being the latest arrival from the 
kingdom of the gods, brought with him many new 
ideas — but think not that with Christ all is said — 
that God has nothing more to say to his people. 

370. Christ brought into the world a lofty religion. 
A religion more lofty than most persons are able to 
understand, or to appreciate, or follow. But as soon 
as man has learned to understand, and to appreciate, 
and to follow the religion of Christ, he will be given 
another, and a still more lofty religion, and one 
nearer the truth. 

371. The final religion will be the religion of 
nature, and will come with a more lofty spiritual 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 59 

development, and a more accurate knowledge of 
natural law. 

372. Faith is instinctive. It is of the spirit-life. 

373. All things are based upon faith that are, can 
be, or will be. Even reason can find no other founda- 
tion on which to rear its structure. 

374. Faith has the power to save us from every- 
thing — even from ourselves. 

375. Hope is important, but it is not so important 
as faith. 

376. Faith is essential to the possession of any- 
thing. We always lose that in which we have lost 
faith. 

377. Faith is a means of knowing that which 
could not otherwise be known. It is a means of 
comprehending that which we are not sufficiently 
enlightened to otherwise comprehend. 

378. Any faith is a good faith provided that it is 
sincere and lofty, for the spirit-life will evolve as 
rapidly under one faith as another. 

379. All faiths lead to the same goal; to the same 
heaven; to the same spiritual attainment or develop- 
ment. 

380. It is safe to assume that he who holds the 
most lofty faith is himself more lofty, and more highly 



60 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

any right to force upon us that which our soul 
developed spiritually than others. 

381. The Christian faith is too far above the 
spiritual development of most persons. It is too 
lofty for most persons to grasp, and to understand, 
and to make their own. 

382. A faith that is too far above us is not our 
faith, but a faith that may be ours when we have 
evolved higher. 

383. We must be faithful to the faith we have if 
we would have more faith; and we must be true to 
the truth we possess if we wish to possess other and 
more lofty truths. 

384. Faith is necessary to spiritual evolution 
because faith tends to create a harmonious attitude 
between life and us, and to bring us into harmony 
with the law of Spiritual Evolution 

385. Faith precedes us in our spiritual evolution, 
and shows us the way. Belief follows after our 
evolution, and helps us to understand more or less 
perfectly why a thing is true, or good. 

386. Faith is an essential to the evolution of 
spirit-life. Belief is a non-essential. 

387. As long as we have faith we evolve irrespec- 
tively of what we believe, or whether we believe or 
not. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 61 

388. Faith requires of us nothing that is unreason- 
able, that is unjust, that is untrue, that is unnatural, 
or in any way out of harmony with nature. Faith 
requires of us only hope and trust. A belief in the 
good, and a desire to get in harmony with the purpose 
of life whatever that purpose may be. 

389. Faith demands of us no exact knowledge, 
no theology whatever, though these may be of aid 
to faith if they are in harmony with truth. 

390. No truth can be true that is out of harmony 
with other truths — that is a discord amid the harmo- 
nies of truth. And that truth must be true which 
is in harmony with all the other truths of which we 
know. 

391. Spiritual evolution must be true because 
spiritual evolution is in harmony with all the other 
religious truths of which we can be certain — because 
spiritual evolution is in harmony with all the essential 
truths of all religions. 

392. That truth which is the most lofty must be 
the most true, whether it be heathen or Christian. 
And the law of Spiritual Evolution is not only the most 
lofty truth in the universe, but it is also the most 
reasonable and the most just. 

393. That which is not true to us is not true, and 
no religious teacher or other person, or persons, has 



62 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

rejects because it has not yet come into the dominion 
of our spiritual world, or has come and passed out 
again. 

394. The truth is more powerful than any religion, 
or belief, or creed, or theory. And if a truth is true 
no amount of force or opposition will be able to 
stifle it or destroy it. 

395. There are as many truths in the world as 
there are individuals, and if a truth answers to our 
spiritual requirements, that truth is our truth. 

396. A spiritual truth is no truth at all to those 
who have not yet developed sufficiently to grasp it, 
or to understand it, and know that it is the truth. 

397. We may be able to communicate spiritually 
with some whom our thoughts never reach. We 
may be able to communicate spiritually with some 
who are utterly incapable of perceiving our truths, 
or understanding our development. 

398. The spirit-life is capable of communicating 
in a spiritual way with less highly developed spirit- 
lives; but the intellect is utterly incapable of convey- 
ing a spiritual truth to a spirit that is not sufficiently 
developed to grasp that truth. 

399. The bible is the work of man. Nature is the 
work of God. 

400. Nature has written the only bible that 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 63 

appeals to the enlightened man. And as man becomes 
more and more enlightened he will insist more and 
more upon a religion that is in harmony with nature — 
that is nature. 

401. Nature tells us more than any bible tells us, 
than any prophet tell us, or religious teacher, or book 
reveals to us. If you would know life and what it 
is all about go to nature. 

402. No bible is necessary. Nature teaches us 
all we need to know, or can know about God, the 
Creator of the Universe. 

403. The bible is an explanation. It is the work 
of some of the best minds and most enlightened spirits 
of the age in which it was written. The bible is a 
priceless book, but it is not the word of God. It is 
merely an attempt on the part of man to explain God, 
and to teach us how best to live. 

404. The best explanation of God comes from 
God's work — from nature. 

405. The bible is worth quoting upon any sub- 
ject, provided that it is quoted as an opinion and not 
as an authority. 

406. At any point where the teachings of the 
bible conflict with the laws of nature, at that point 
the teachings of the bible cease to be of value to the 
human race because the laws of nature are the su- 
preme authority on all subjects pertaining to God. 



64 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

407. Man needs no bible nor religious guide to 
show him the way to God. All that he needs is 
nature, for in nature all is revealed. 

408. Science is in position to help us much in 
arriving at a more correct knowledge of God; and 
that scientist who is the nearest to God in his evolution 
is the best scientist, and the most able to understand, 
and to explain God. 

409. It would be easy by a new version of the 
Christian bible to bring that book into harmony with 
all that science finds true, with all that culture finds 
true, with all that education and learning finds true, 
with all truth. It would be easy by a new version 
of the Christian bible to bring that book into harmo- 
ny with all the truths that spiritual evolution and 
enlightenment have revealed to man since the dawn 
of history, or since the bible was written. It would 
be easy by a new version of the Christian bible to 
bring that book into harmony with nature and with 
God. 

410. Faith is as necessary to science as it is to 
religion. And when faith is lost, all is lost. 

411. Science comes nearer the truth concerning 
God than any religion comes — than Moses came — 
than Buddah came — than Brahma came — than Christ 
came. 

412. Science comes near the truth concerning 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 65 

God, but science has not gone far enough. It has 
merely plowed the surface of nature, and discovered 
a few mysterious manifestations of that power, force, 
or creative energy within, and knows not that it has 
discovered God. 

413. We are enlightened by love, by sympathy, 
by admiration, by all things that are in harmony with 
the laws of nature. 

414. That man is the most enlightened who has 
advanced farther than others on the road to spirit- 
ual perfection. 

415. Enlightenment is a spiritual, not a mental, 
quality. We acquire knowledge through study and 
experience, and enlightenment through spiritual 
evolution or development. 

416. Just as our enlightenment and our self- 
consciousness increases as we evolve, or as we advance 
upward toward the good, so do these decrease if by 
chance we travel the other way. 

417. Only the most enlightened know how little 
they know, and how profound is the ignorance of 
those who know less than they know. 

418. No man is sufficiently enlightened to ac- 
curately judge the importance of the most insignificant 
act, or the most vaguely perceived impression. 

419. Fear stands like a ghost in the pathway of 



66 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

enlightenment, and prevents many from becoming 
enlightened. 

420. Our enlightenment increases in so far only 
as we follow it, or are guided by it. The moment 
that we cease to follow our enlightenment, and begin 
to do that which we know is not wise, our enlighten- 
ment and our wisdom begin to recede from us and to 
leave us in spiritual darkness. 

421. The most enlightened of us are yet so stupid 
that a truth must be presented to us in many different 
forms and shapes and colors before we can fully grasp 
it, and digest it, and make it our own. 

422. We are all moral in some ways, and immoral 
in others. 

423. To be moral is to play the game of life ac- 
cording to the rules laid down by society, but to be 
moral has nothing to do with being good. 

424. It is wise to be moral, but it is much more 
wise to be good. 

425. Those who are moral obey the laws of man 
and those who are good obey the laws of God, or of 
nature. 

426. The moral code is neither lofty enough, nor 
perfect enough, nor good enough to be our guide. 

427. Morality is the policy of man. That which 
will serve man's interest best is the moral. There- 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 67 

fore morality bears no true relation to the good, and 
may even be, and sometimes is, the bad. 

428. Our moral standard changes with our morals, 
and both are continually changing. 

429. Morality was once in harmony with nature's 
laws, but that was before man thought to improve 
upon the work of nature. 

430. The moral is too low and mean and disgust- 
ing. It reminds us too much of man, and too little 
of God. It is not lofty enough, nor good enough, nor 
divine enough to be our guiding star, the standard 
toward which we aspire. 

431. The moral can not lift its soul high enough 
to touch the skirts of the good. 

432. To sin is to get out of harmony with the pur- 
pose of life, or of nature. It is therefore discord. It 
is to strike the wrong key, or cord, or note. 

433. Sin retards spiritual evolution by producing 
discord between the good, or nature, and us. And 
sin produces this discord between nature and us by 
breaking the current of spiritual attraction that 
exists between us and all other spirit-life. And this 
discord that sin produces, creates in us a restlessness, 
and discontent, and unhappiness that reveals to us 
the fact that discord exists between nature, or the 
good, and us. 



68 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

434. Sin dulls our perception. It prevents us 
from seeing our way clearly. It forces us to grope 
our way about like one in the dark. 

435. Sin has not the power to destroy us. It can 
only impede, retard and delay us on our evolutionary 
journey. Sin can only hold us back, and force us to 
spend more lives than are necessary in material bodies. 

436. Sin occupies but a narrow space in life. It 
can not go beyond the point where self-consciousness 
is born, nor can it mount to that height of spiritual 
enlightenment to which our evolution soon carries us. 

437. Sin is eventually a corrective force. It 
eventually pushes us toward the good by forcibly 
revealing to us the fact that we are out of harmony 
with the good, or with nature, or with the purpose 
of life. 

438. The sins that we have committed seem much 
less heinous to us than the sins that have been com- 
mitted by others. 

439. Those hate sin most who still have some- 
thing to fear from sin. 

440. The farther we get from sin the less con- 
scious we are of the existence of sin. And if we 
journey far enough from sin, sin will cease to exist 
to us. 

441. Every evil, every falsehood, carries within 
it the germ of self-destruction. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 69 

442. Every evil is a discord — is a note that is out 
of harmony with nature and with life. 

443. Evil suggests evil to those who are evil. 

444. The minute we cease to be evil, evil ceases 
to exist to us. 

445. He fears evil who is evil. 

446. Every evil act that we commit tends to delay 
not only us, but all humanity, all nature, on its 
march toward perfection. 

44 7 . Out in the silence with nature there is harmony 
and it is in this harmony of silence, rather than in the 
discord of sounds, that great men are born and 
developed and become great. 

448. Every great or highly developed spirit-life 
is the product of solitude, or of the silence of nature. 

449. He who fears silence, fears God — is afraid 
to meet his spirit-self, or the spirit lives of others. 

450. Only when we are in the silence with nature 
are we in position to be guided or instructed or helped 
by the dead — by those spirit-lives that are above and 
beyond us. 

451. Just as some men flee from the silence or 
from solitude, in order to get away from life, and to 
keep their minds on things outside themselves, so 
other men seek solitude or the silence, in order to 
learn of life and of themselves and of God. 



70 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

452. Every great thought, or idea, or conception 
that we conceive comes to us from solitude, or out 
of the silence of nature. 

453. The silence of nature is healthful and heal- 
ing. It tends to destroy discord and to produce 
harmony between life and us. 

454. Go out into the silence with nature and listen 
to what nature has to say if you wou lealdrn how 
trivial are the ways of men or if you would become 
enlightened, or learned, or wise. 

455. Silence tells us much which no words or 
sounds can tell us. It reveals to us beauty and dis- 
closes to us wisdom that is beyond the power of 
human language to express. 

456. Solitude is necessary to spiritual develop- 
ment — is one of the mysterious laws of our inner- 
growth. 

457. A man to live in solitude must be good, must 
be in harmony with nature and at peace with his own 
soul. 

458. To be able to live in the silence with nature, 
in solitude, is one of the most great of all virtues 
because solitude makes the highest possible demands 
upon the spiritual man. 

459. Most of our virtues are virtues that require 
of us no conscious effort, are virtues that have ceased 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 71 

to be virtues and have become part of our nature. 

460. We are instructed by our virtues more than 
we are by our vices. The latter dulls our perception 
while the former helps us to see. 

461. That virtue does not exist to us which is too 
far above our spiritual development for us to perceive. 

462. We owe all our happiness to our virtues, and 
were we sufficiently wise we could distinguish to which 
particular virtue we owe each of our happy moments. 

463. The philosophy of doing that which is right 
is so simple that many of us are unable to grasp it. 

464. We suffer just as much for having violated 
principles that we believe to be right as we would if 
they were right. 

465. The satisfaction of being in the right pays 
a higher dividend than the selfishness of having what 
we desire, or doing what we wish. 

466. He who does wrong is lacking in perception, 
or in knowledge, or in courage. The man who does 
wrong is not an enlightened man, nor a wise man, 
nor a man that is high in the scale of spiritual evolu- 
tion. 

467 The value of prayer is in the attitude pro- 
duced. Prayer unconsciously tends to bring us into 
harmony with the law of Spiritual Evolution, and 
through that law help us in our spiritual development. 



72 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

468. Most prayers are sermons in which ministers 
preach to God in the presence of men. 

469. Some prayers are but the cry of a soul in 
distress. And some prayers are prayers of submission, 
of surrender — are prayers uttered by souls that have 
been in rebellion against the law of Spiritual Evolu- 
tion, and who now humbly submit to that law. 

470. "Thy will be done," is one of the most wise 
of all prayers. 

471. The only prayer that is really answered is 
our attitude toward life. 

472. We occasionally ask our God for that which 
Satan would be glad to grant us. 

473. A public prayer should be a series of lofty 
suggestions preceded by a brief silence. A public 
prayer should be scientific and psychological. It 
should suggest the good, and through suggestion bring 
the hearers into harmony with the purpose of life. 
To do this successfully each suggestion should be 
preceded by a brief silence. 

474. To be just is not enough. We should also 
be good. 

475. The just man is rewarded for his justness, 
but the higher rewards are reserved for those who 
are also good. 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 73 

476. If justice were given to those who are sel- 
fish and greedy and who do wrong, they would re- 
ceive that which they give — selfishness and greed and 
wrong. 

477. It is not the just who most often cry out for 
justice, but the unjust — those whose sense of justice 
is imperfectly developed. 

478. All men believe in justice, but some men 
need to be enlightened as to what justice is in reality. 

479. Justice appeals to every one, even to the 
unjust — to those who do not wish for justice save 
for themselves. 

480. To be entirely just we must know — must 
understand — must be enlightened. 

481. In the affairs of men justice is usually an 
accident. It sometimes happens that those who are 
to decide between the right and the wrong find that 
their interest will be best served on the side of the 
right, and so justice is done. 

482. The desire to be just tends to elevate us> 
and the desire to be unjust tends to lower, to degrade 
us. 

483. It costs us nothing to be just, but to be un- 
just costs us some part of our self-esteem, our self- 
respect. He who commits an unjust act thinks less 
of himself than he did before that act was committed. 



74 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

484. Those who do not see goodness and beauty 
and purpose in every living creature, person and 
thing do not see — are blind. 

485. Our ability to see a thing depends largely 
upon our attitude toward it. If we care for it — 
have love for it, or sympathy, or feeling — we are 
more able to see it. 

486. It is with our spiritual eye that we are able 
to see the most, and to comprehend the most. 

487. We need not despair because of that which 
we can not see — because of that which is yet hidden 
from us — for as we develop spiritually our ability to 
see, and to hear, and to know, and to understand will 
increase. To those who have reached a certain stage 
in their spiritual development, all is revealed. 

488. Observe repeatedly that which you would 
enjoy because nothing is seen in its entirety at first, 
or until it has been long and repeatedly observed. 

489. Everything reveals itself to us slowly and 
gradually — a little at a time. 

490. Everything that we observe becomes more 
and more beautiful the longer and more closely we 
observe it. 

491. If you would learn to observe the beauty 
of God, first begin by observing the beauty of nature, 
and keep on observing the beauty of nature until it 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 75 

gradually expands before you and leads you into the 
presence of God. 

492. To be one's self is to be original. 

493. We are what we see, and know, and under- 
stand. Our enlightenment is an accurate standard 
by which to guage our development. 

494. We are more wise than we know, and more 
foolish than we think. 

495. He lives the most wisely who lives the most 
in harmony with the purpose of life — who is less con- 
cerned in material things than others. 

496. Wisdom is the fruit of spiritual development 
and consists in a knowledge of how best to live in 
order to evolve the most rapidly toward the divine. 

497. We can not by any flight of our imagination 
fully realize the grandeur of our destiny. 

498. Each spirit-life must work out its own 
destiny — must obtain its own spiritual development — 
and though it may be helped or hindered by other 
spirits, none can succeed for it or secure for it that 
which it may have failed to obtain for itself. 

499. The future does not concern us, but the 
present is of vital importance to us because out of 
the present our future is evolved. 

500. Our future is illuminated for us for brief 



76 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

periods of time much as the earth is illuminated 
by a flash of lightning. 

501. A seer is one who sees more than others in a 
spiritual sense because he has attained a higher point 
in his spiritual evolution than others, and is there- 
fore in position to see more. 

502. The law of Spiritual Evolution makes seers 
and prophets just as it makes men who are enlightened 
spiritually and who understand while other men lack 
enlightenment and are blind. 

503. A materialist is one who does not see — who 
is blind — and therefore one who knows not life or the 
purpose of life. 

504. Materialism is ignorance raised to its high- 
est degree. It is an ignorance so profound that none 
of the secrets of life can penetrate to it. 

505. Heaven is a state, and is reached through 
spiritual evolution only. 

506. There is no sudden change from earth to 
heaven. We reach heaven by a gradual develop- 
ment, or unfolding, that is so gradual that we are seldom 
conscious of it, and wake to find ourselves in a different 
sphere from that in which we were. 

507. Perhaps there is not a spirit-life in human 
form that is sufficiently developed to enter heaven 
from this life, but there must be some spirits in 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 7 7 

human form for whom heaven is near — is not many 
ives away. 

508. To possess too much of earth is to possess 
too little of heaven. 

509. Earth and heaven gradually blend into each 
other as our spiritual development increases and while 
some of us are still firmly upon earth, others of us are 
in heaven, or in the border land between earth and 
heaven. 

510. The road to heaven is a road that few men 
understand — in all the centuries past have under- 
stood — and yet it is a road that is so simple and so 
plainly discernible that all ought to be able to under- 
stand it and to follow it without many slips. 

The road to heaven is simply spiritual evolution 
obtained through following the good that we know, 
and aspiring to reach that more lofty good that we 
have reasons for believing is just ahead. 

The road to heaven is simply a spiritual growth, 
a slow unfolding, a development obtained by living 
in harmony with a law that is perfectly discernible 
to all who will to behold it and to follow it. 

511. If heaven is no more beautiful than we con- 
ceive it to be, then it is not as beautiful as earth, for 
earth contains more beauty than we are able to see, 
or to conceive, or to understand. 

512. Of what use is heaven to those who have not 



78 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

yet reached a state in their spiritual development 
where they are in a position to enjoy earth? 

513. Heaven must need grow more beautiful the 
nearer we approach it. And earth must need become 
more beautiful to most of us before we can afford to 
part with it. 

514. Heaven is attained through spiritual de- 
velopment at the point where a physical body is no 
longer necessary, but the spirit-life does not pause 
there. It continues its evolution through enumber- 
able heavens, each one of which is superior to the last 
or the one beneath it. 

515. Heaven is not a reward that can be secured 
through believing. It is an attainment that can be 
attained only through spiritual development. 

516. The way to heaven lies through aspiration, 
through desire, through a longing to be something 
more lofty than we are. The way to heaven lies 
through an unfolding, a growth, a development, an 
evolution. 

517. He has not traveled who has not gone beyond 
the few trivial, petty, conventional, and common- 
place ideas of man and beheld that more lofty sphere 
where man's ideas are broad and elevating and beaut- 
iful and chaste and clean and sincere and godlike. 

518. The reason why most men are satisfied with 
the trivial and commonplace things of life is because 



SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 79 

they have never known, or experienced any of the 
important things of life. 

519. The petty and the trivial things of life are 
the important things of life to those who have never 
ascended to more lofty heights than the commonplace 
— to those who have never experienced what it is to 
live on a spiritual plane of life. 

520. The world that we know is a mere trivial in 
comparison to the worlds within this world that we 
know, for within this world that we know there are 
millions of other worlds and each of these other worlds 
is more mysterious and strange and astonishing than 
the one of which we know. And if we could follow 
these inner worlds far enough, we would come at 
last to the one world that is more mysterious and 
astonishing than all the others — the spiritual world. 

521. In all the affairs of men the trivial and un- 
important has, with few exceptions, precedence over 
the vital and more important things of life. 

522. The importance of anything does not strike 
us at once. It is only after we have had time to re- 
flect that we begin to grasp the importance of the 
most significant fact or event. 

523. Nothing is of importance that does not re- 
veal to us something that is new, something that we 
have never before seen, that does not disclose to us 



80 SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 

some secret of life, and therefore enlighten us and 
help us to live more wisely than before. 

524. The most important things that happen to 
us are those of which we are silent, and which we 
could not convey to another even if we tried to speak 
of them. 

525. We never discover anything of spiritual im- 
portance without first having made spiritual prep- 
arations for that discovery. 

526. All things that are, are necessary. Nothing 
is that is not of some importance in the scheme of 

things. 



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